Fortune Watch

This is a fairly long read, most of you will leave before you reach halfway and say “I know the ropes, I know the game and I know the rules, what the heck is this guy talking about?” If you think this is a load of crap and you are a master, get off my site and go invest all your money, I know jolly well that you know nothing. Oh yeah! before you go make sure to bookmark this page, you will need to read it when the damage is done. Ask 8 out of 10 people why they invested in a particular stock, the answers will be like “Its a great stock and besides most of my friends have invested too.” The truth is they don’t have a clue. If you do happen to read till the end, I’d love to hear from you.  Assuming I have your attention and interest, please read on.

It is important to be independent in our decisions to invest, and be able to evaluate and understand the companies that we are considering for potential investment. In this article, I want to share with you some of the things that I look at when deciding if a stock is a good investment or not.

Revenue
To pick out a stock that will create good long-term value for its shareholders, investors need to look at the sales figure to see if it is growing at a healthy rate long-term.

Investors should, however, make sure that the company is not over-aggressive in its expansion and taking on too much debt; spreading itself too thin. Investors should also make sure that the company is not in the habit of regularly issuing new stock to fund its growth, as this kind of activities will dilute the holdings of shareholders. The best companies are usually the ones that can mostly or fully fund their expansion from internally generated funds.

Investors also shouldn’t overpay for stocks with high growth rates, as this will put investors in a situation where they find themselves with big losses because a high-growth company they bought shares in missed earnings estimates by 0.1% or something.

It is important to figure out if the growth rate of the company is sustainable by reading the annual report for information on growth and looking at the industry the company is in, as well as the size of the company in relation to the size of its largest competitors. A company doing $8 billion dollars in sales in a mature industry where its biggest competitor is only doing $10 billion dollars in sales generally can’t grow much and shouldn’t have too high a rate of growth.
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Most people enter the investment arena thinking that “Risk” is a board game they played in college. Today, I would guess that the majority of investors have never owned an individual share of common stock or a Municipal Bond.

The popularity of investment products has heightened the risk for all investors and has indirectly led to many of the policy errors that threaten both capitalism and the economic fabric of America. Market prices are increasingly and inappropriately influenced by decision-making based only on the derivatives that contain them.

Few people consider the investment risk associated with public policy decisions. Product investors and derivative speculators participate in less personal markets, where it is more difficult to connect the dots between their personal financial interests and their political alignments.

So in a very real sense, investors have to deal with public policy risk every bit as much as they need to analyze the risks associated with the securities and other financial products they hold in their portfolios — complicated, but it is doable.

Apart from these important peripheral considerations, the risk of loss in any equity investment is generally greater than the risk of loss in any debt related instrument. The potential reward from each type is just the opposite, and that’s where all the excitement begins.

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Boaters run aground by not paying attention to tides, charts, navigation tools and their GPSes. Investors get swamped with information, media noise, breaking news, politicians, gurus, and derivatives — so much so that they can’t see the oncoming fog banks and tsunamis of cyclical change.

Most investment mistakes are caused by basic misunderstandings of the securities markets and by invalid performance expectations. Losing money on an investment may not be the result of an investment sandbar and not all mistakes in judgment result in broken propellers.

Errors occur most frequently when judgment is rocked out of the boat by emotion, hindsight, and misconceptions about how securities react to waves of varying economic, political, and hysterical circumstances. You are the commander of your investment fleet. Use these ten risk-minimizers as lifeboats:

1. Identify realistic goals that include time, risk-tolerance, and future income requirements — chart your course before you leave the pier. A well thought out plan will minimize tacking maneuvers. A well-captained plan will not need trendy hardware or exotic rigging.

2. Learn to distinguish between asset allocation and diversification. Asset allocation divides the portfolio between equity and income securities. Diversification limits the size of individual holdings in several ways. Both hedge against the risk of loss. Both are done best using a cost based approach.

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Fascinating, isn’t it, this stock market of ours, with its unpredictability, promise, and unscripted daily drama. But individual investors are even more interesting. We’ve become the product of a media driven culture that must have reasons, predictability, blame, scapegoats, and even that four-letter word, certainty.

We are a culture of investors where hindsight is rapidly replacing the reality-based foresight that once was flowing in our now real-time veins — just like in basketball, golf, and football.

The Stock Market is a dynamic place where investors can consistently make reasonable returns on their working capital if they comply with the basic principles of the endeavor AND if they don’t measure their progress too frequently with irrelevant measuring devices.

The classic investment strategy is so simple and so trite that most investors dismiss it routinely and move on in their search for the holy investment grail(s): a stock market that only rises and a bond market capable of paying higher interest rates at stable or higher prices — just not going to happen.

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A correction is a beautiful thing, simply the flip side of a rally, big or small. Theoretically, even technically I’m told, corrections adjust equity prices to their actual value or “support levels”. In reality, it’s much easier than that.

Prices go down because of speculator reactions to expectations of news, speculator reactions to actual news, and investor profit taking. The two former “becauses” are more potent than ever before because there is more self-directed money out there than ever before. And therein lies the core of correctional beauty!

Mutual Fund unit holders rarely take profits but often take losses. Additionally, the new breed of Index Fund Speculators over-react to news of any kind because that’s what speculators do. Thus, if this brief little hiccup becomes considerably more serious, new investment opportunities will be abundant!

Here’s a list of ten things to think about doing, or to avoid doing, during corrections of any magnitude:
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Rising markets require GREED CONTROL just as surely as falling markets demand protection against FEAR — the two heads of the “ole” Uncertainty Monster!

While the media and your buddies drool or cringe, respectively, your Working Capital focus keeps you on target, looking for higher yielding, quality, income securities and/or quality equities that have fallen from grace with the Market. Remember that Smart Cash is only “smart” if it doesn’t burn a hole in your Asset Allocation.

Knowing that excessive cash is the result of profit taking should encourage investors to avoid the purchase of high priced old favorites, hot new issues, and the best performing funds. When the FEAR head is talking to you, The Working Capital Model will be whispering in your other ear to get that Equity Allocation back where it belongs with lower priced quality issues — possibly the same ones you recently sold for profits.

I know of no other Investment Manager anywhere (other than those who have contacted me and obtained my consent), private or public, that uses The Working Capital Model to direct individual investor portfolios — certainly none of the major operators, who are dependent for their survival upon the whim of even larger “others”.
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The Asset Allocation formula is the mission statement that defines the long term structure and nature of the portfolio. By simply stating, for example, that the portfolio is to be 70% invested in equities and 30% in fixed income, an investor has proven that: (1) he has analyzed his personal situation carefully and, (2) determined that this structure is most likely to achieve his long term goals.

Asset Allocation is often misused and abused in an effort to superimpose a valid investment planning tool on speculation strategies that have no real merits of their own. For example, “annual portfolio repositioning”, “market timing adjustments”, and shifting between Mutual Funds. To be effective, Asset Allocation must be implemented as an on-going process that is to be tended to with every investment decision.

The Asset Allocation Formula itself is sacred, and if constructed properly, should never be altered in any respect due to conditions in either equity or income markets. Changes in the personal situation, goals, and objectives of the investor are the only issues that can be allowed into the Asset Allocation decision making process. It operates above the whims and cycles of the markets — Income or Equity.

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During every correction, I encourage investors to avoid the destructive inertia that results from trying to determine: how low can we go; how long will this last? Investors who add to their portfolios during downturns invariably experience higher market values during the next advance— particularly if they focus on Investment Grade Value Stocks (IGVS).

IGVS valuations have been trending upward for nearly a year; Market Cycle Investment Management portfolios are eclipsing the all time highs achieved in 2007, and income Closed End Fund values have risen with surprisingly high yields still intact. The investment gods are smiling once again— but not on everyone.

Corrections are as much a part of the normal market cycle as rallies, and they can be brought about by either bad news or good news. (Yes, that’s what I meant.) Investors always over-analyze when prices become weak and over-indulge when prices are high, thus perpetuating the “buy high, sell low” Wall Street lunacy.
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Asset Allocation is an investment-planning tool, not an investment strategy — few investment professionals understand the distinction. Fewer still have discovered the power of The Working Capital Model. The problem that most investors have is that they use the wrong number to determine their Asset Allocation in the first place. Neither market value nor the calendar year should be relevant issues.

The only reason for a person to assume the risks associated with investing is the possibility of achieving a higher rate of return than is attainable in risk free savings depositories for their capital (money). Investing is a get rich slowly process, conducted in an uncertain environment — one that must be understood and managed in a way that minimizes the risks involved.

The Working Capital Model accomplishes this by eliminating the need for impersonal comparisons with arbitrary and unrelated numbers and time periods. It works best with portfolios that are diversified among individual securities that are at the same time of high quality and income producing.

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Many of the things you think you know about investing are part of a mythology designed to make you bounce around between investment products. Modern day “conventional wisdom” just isn’t all that its cracked up to be. Concepts you worship are inaccurate; indices and averages you trust do not tell the complete story; the basic investment concepts still work — but Wall Street won’t tell you what they are.

It’s time to determine your investment IQ, here’s the deal:

Just take the True-False test below and send me an email list of the statements you feel are generally TRUE — please refrain from including any rationale or explanation. If you don’t get 80% or more correct — you need help.

Here we go: Generally speaking, are the following statements mostly True or mostly False? Note: you’ll do better if you research terms that you are unfamiliar with. Terms in “quotes” have very specific meanings in the Market Cycle Investment Management/Working Capital Model methodology.
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